Just What I Needed
by Panda Gravy
Summary: It had started off years ago, back in Minnesota when Logan and James had first met in the third grade, as the only way James knew how to get attention. He was an annoyance to Logan and a constant pain in the neck. Slight Jagan.


**Just What I Needed**

_It had started off years ago, back in Minnesota when Logan and James had first met in the third grade, as the only way James knew how to get attention. He was an annoyance to Logan, the way he wouldn't stop talking, especially about himself, and was a constant pain in Logan's neck. Slight Jagan._

**a/n: So I still have finals and I'm still shirking my school work to do fics. I was in the car today and Just What I Needed by the Cars came on and I realized it was one of the most Jagan things I've ever heard. So I, of course, immediately wrote a fic based on it, because that's what I do now. It's my first time doing kid!fic, so be wary. I can't stand children, so I don't know if I wrote them very well, but I really tried. This may also be the least slashy thing I've ever written, but I can't write James and Logan without one of them having at least some feelings for the other. So read, enjoy, please please please review! Even if you read this in, like, six months, a review would be awesome. Neither BTR nor the song belongs to me.**

…

It had started off years ago, back in Minnesota when Logan and James had first met in the third grade, as the only way James knew how to get attention. He was an annoyance to Logan, the way he wouldn't stop talking, especially about himself, and was a constant pain in Logan's neck. For some reason, he'd taken an instant liking to Logan, despite his nerdiness, and never left him alone if he could help it. He sat by Logan in every class, partnered up with him in gym, and even tagged along home with him after school nearly every night in the week.

"And then I told my mom that they said on What Not To Wear that orange was ugly and how was I supposed to become a pop star and marry a super model if I looked like I was dressed by a colorblind moose? And then she grounded me, but—"

"James!" Logan said for at least the tenth time since this story had begun, but only this time did he get James' attention. Probably because he shouted this time. His voice was already high enough, but it bordered on shrill when he yelled, which was why James poked a finger in his ear and wiggled it with a scrunched up face.

"What?" he whined from where he sat cross-legged on Logan's bed with a slew of action figures he'd taken down from Logan's display shelf laid out before him on the quilts. Logan had complained when James took them down, because they were for show, not play, but Mrs. Mitchell had told Logan that wasn't how one makes friends. So he let James play with his figurines. And as thanks, James was obnoxious.

Logan turned in his seat at his desk, away from the homework he was trying to concentrate on. He wanted to get ahead in the workbook, but he wasn't getting anything done with James going on like he was. "Go home, James," Logan insisted as clearly as possible.

James frowned like he didn't understand. "Your mom said I could stay for dinner," he said, picking up the Red Ranger and facing him to the Pink Ranger. Logan scrunched his face, wondering if James was going to make them kiss, because that would be gross. It was bad enough that James took them down off the shelf to treat them like toys.

"Yeah, and we ate dinner. An hour ago," Logan explained, waving an arm so emphatically that his bottlecap glasses slipped down his nose and he had to push them back up again.

James looked up from the action figures and didn't say anything for a few seconds. Logan squirmed a little bit in his seat. James had big, glassy eyes and really long eyelashes that made the way he looked at Logan a little creepy. Like being stared at by a life-size doll. He even had the hair.

"You want me to leave, Logan?" James asked, and he definitely sounded put-out.

Logan wasn't mean. Well, no, he was kind of mean sometimes. But it was only because he was smarter than every single other person around him and he couldn't handle stupidity. And he hadn't really known James very long, but he was already starting to figure out that James was one of those people whose stupidity was going to make Logan mean. But right then, Logan made the decision not to be mean. Because while he could be mean to stupid people, he couldn't be mean to stupid people who had that pathetic little voice and that sad puppy face.

He sighed. "Well—I just—I mean, I'm trying to do homework and—well, you're sort of being…" Logan took a breath. He wanted to say 'obnoxious,' but he'd only made three friends here in Minnesota so far; James, Kendall, and Carlos. And James was best friends with Kendall and Carlos, and if he told them that Logan was mean, they wouldn't want to be friends with Logan, and then he'd be friendless. He already looked like a dork with his glasses and sweater vests, he couldn't afford to not have friends, too. That would be the final nail in his tiny, weird, new kid coffin. "…distracting." That was a much more tactful way to finish the sentence.

Still, James dipped his head a little looking at the Power Rangers in his hands. "I can… be quieter."

Logan stared at James for a few moments before he adjusted his glasses and turned back to his desk. "Okay… just so long as you promise." He went back to his worksheets in new silence, tapping his calculator every so often.

Soon, though, James was humming. And then he was singing low and quiet. And then a little louder. And then louder until it was starting to make Logan crazy, and it was some kitchy little pop song, that kind of music that made him cringe, and he just shot up from his desk, practically yelling, "I'm going to go get us snacks!"

James went silent, and then shrugged. "Okay." And he started singing again and Logan huffed and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Mrs. Mitchell was making cookies. She'd been doing her best to help Logan fit in at his new school, and this involved a lot of baked goods. Logan constantly had cookies with him, whether he was bringing a whole tub of them to class or stuffing extras in his lunchbox to share at lunch or taking a bag to the pee-wee hockey practices his parents had signed him up for. Kendall was on the team, too, and said he was trying to get James and Carlos to play with them. He also said that Logan's mom's cookies were better than his mom's, which was exactly how Logan and Kendall had become friends.

"Mom, I want James to go home," Logan said very plainly, crossing his arms as he approached his mother.

Mrs. Mitchell raised one side of her mouth and an eyebrow at her son. She was used to his blatancy; he'd gotten it from her. But she also knew Logan needed to get better at making friends because of it. "Why do you want him to leave? Aren't you two having fun?"

Logan huffed, throwing his head back and turning dramatically to sit at the kitchen table. "He's having fun. He's playing with my action figures. And he won't stop talking or singing or whatever. It's so annoying," Logan complained, everything just a little more overdramatic than it really needed to be. "And he smells like a girl."

"Logie," his mother said sweetly, which received a scrunched up face from Logan at the table. He was at the age where his mother's terms of endearment were beginning to get old. "James' mom runs a corporation and she works long hours. He doesn't have anyone to play with at home, so he probably gets lonely."

"He could go to Kendall's or Carlos' house. That's what he did before we moved here," Logan muttered as he folded his arms on the table, putting his chin on top of them.

"He wants to be friends with you, Logan," his mother continued, sounding a little sterner. She took a tray of cookies from the oven, a hot, dryness filling the kitchen as she did so. "Just be nice to him, please? He's a sweet boy and he wants to be your friend. Don't you want friends?"

Logan frowned. Of course he wanted friends. What did his mom think he was? Some kind of not-friend-wanting hermit crab? He wanted to be accepted and admired like the other boys, like James and Kendall and Carlos. They were the most popular boys in his class. He wanted to be one of them. "Well… yeah… but I want to do my homework."

Mrs. Mitchell stood up straight again and turned to frown at her son confusedly. "…you… are so strange sometimes…" Logan raised his eyebrows at her, and as he did so, his glasses, heavy and thick, slid down his nose and he had to push them back up. When he could see again, his mother was smiling at him and came over to kiss his head and mess up his hair.

Logan smiled and ducked away from his mother's affections. He loved being doted on the way she did with him, but he thought he would just die if she ever did that sort of thing in front of the other boys. "Can I have some cookies for me and James?"

"James and I, sweetie," Mrs. Mitchell corrected, but she put some cookies on a plate anyway.

As she handed the plate to him, Logan shook his head. "Nope. 'Me and James' was the indirect object. It's only 'James and I' when it's the subject of the sentence, which, in this case, 'I' was the subject." He grinned at his mother cheekily as she rolled her eyes and turned him by the shoulders back towards the stairs, giving him a gentle, teasing push.

"So strange!" she called after him, and he continued smiling to himself as he skipped up the steps. He liked being smart.

Logan could hear James singing in his bedroom before he even got to the door. He took a breath before opening it, reminding himself that James wanted to be his friend. That he wasn't only obnoxious—he was definitely obnoxious, but it wasn't the only thing—he was also lonely and didn't have his mom at home to make him cookies and kiss his head and ruffle his hair, although from what Logan had seen of James, he figured the other boy would probably have a breakdown if his mom tried to ruffle his hair like Logan's did to him.

"Hey, I brought cookies," Logan announced as he came into the room and sat on the end of the bed across from James.

James stopped singing as soon as Logan returned and his face lit up as he grabbed for a cookie. "Dude, your mom's cookies are the best! And they're still hot, this is awesome…" He shoved the whole thing into his mouth and Logan raised his eyebrows, impressed. It wasn't much of a wonder that James was a little soft and pudgy, with the way Logan had seen him stuff his mouth with cookies and cupcakes and pie. But it somehow added to the way he looked like a doll, and Logan wondered if he'd still look like that when he was older.

When he shook himself from his thoughts, Logan realized James was staring at him and he frowned, recoiling slightly. "What are you looking at?" Logan asked, feeling a little weird with James' shiny eyes on him.

James shook his head immediately, swallowing his bite of cookie. "You're not sitting at your desk," he explained, nodding to the desk in question. "Did you finish your homework?"

Logan glanced at his workbook still laying open on his desk. He was a couple pages ahead in the work, but he'd been hoping to finish the whole unit tonight… he was dying to get a move on so that by the end of the school year, he'd be at least a semester ahead of his classmates. He had a whole five-year plan for his studying at this point. "No…" he answered slowly, forcing his gaze away from his homework and back to the plate of cookies. "But… I decided to take a break to play. You, uhm… looked sort of lonely, so…" He trailed off and finally just picked up a cookie to nibble on.

When he glanced up a little, he thought that James couldn't possibly look happier. He picked up the Power Rangers again, offering the pink one to Logan. "Here! You can be the Pink Ranger," he explained as he did so.

Logan, however, scowled and snatched the Red Ranger from James' other hand. "No, this is my house, and they're my action figures, so I get to be the Red Ranger," he explained very matter-of-factly. But at the surprised look on James' face, Logan remembered what his mom had said, that James just wanted to be his friend. He wasn't trying to be obnoxious… He handed the Red Ranger back. "Or… I guess we can… share. You can be the Red Ranger for the first ten minutes, and then—"

James didn't wait to hear the rest, he just grabbed the action figure back, exclaiming loudly, "Sweet!" and tossed the Pink Ranger into Logan's lap.

Logan gasped and scrambled to make sure the figure didn't get damaged, but he managed not to scowl at James this time. To be honest, James was turning out to not be so bad… He was loud and obnoxious and self-absorbed and weird and—well, Logan could find a lot of things that were bad about James, but the point was that he wanted to be Logan's friend. For some reason, he hung around Logan, and Logan figured he couldn't be too bad.

…

"And then I told him that he was stupid because scarves are so making a comeback and isn't he going to look dumb when everyone's wearing a scarf and he isn't and all the girls will be, like, 'Ooh, did you see James Diamond's scarf? He's so classy. Not like that other guy, he's so… uhm… not classy.'"

Logan didn't cut James off. He just nodded from where he sat at his desk, glancing every so often at James laying on his back on Logan's bed, his head hanging upside down off the edge. Honestly, he was only about half-listening to James' story. There was something about scarves and girls, and he figured that was about all he needed to know to get the idea that the story was pretty pointless.

Even years after James had begun developing the habit of coming home with Logan after school to harass him, he continued doing it. Through middle school and freshman year, James still sometimes followed Logan home after hockey practice, had dinner with his family, and then sat on Logan's bed for at least an hour doing nothing but talking and touching Logan's things while Logan did homework.

Logan got used to it eventually. His room became James proof after James broke something for the first time, Logan's scale model of the human body. Logan taught himself to listen to James just enough while he did his homework to pick up on key facts so that he could prove to James that he'd been listening. He even learned to stop making his bed in the mornings, fully aware that James would be over in the afternoon to sit and lay and stand and jump and roll around all over it. Logan learned not to mind.

Once, when they started their sophomore year of high school, Logan asked James why he still came over for dinner when he was old enough to go home and make his own supper. He'd thought about it for a few moments, looking sort of distant, before he just smiled and poked Logan in the cheek, saying, "I like wasting your time."

At least he was honest.

That was why Logan never made him stop, even now they were in LA and actually lived together. James still came into Logan's room every so often while he knew it was homework time, and flopped on Logan's bed and just started talking.

"Hey, Logan?" James asked suddenly, lifting his head so he could see his friend properly where he was seated at his desk at the foot of his bed.

Logan looked up, eyebrows raised. "Hm?" He was ready for a pop quiz, to be asked some mundane question about scarves. He had notes scribbled in the margins of his homework with details about James' story, something he'd started doing years back to help him out if he ever had to contribute to the mostly one-sided conversation.

"Why don't you wear glasses anymore?" James asked, frowning. He sat up to face Logan on the bed.

Logan blinked, because that was not at all what he'd been expecting. "Oh. Well, I don't need them anymore," he explained with a shrug. "My eyes sort of fixed themselves. They were just, uhm…" He paused as he tried to think of a way to explain it that James would understand. "They were a little underdeveloped." The fewer technical terms Logan used with James, the easier his life would be.

"They were so dorky-looking," James said with a grin.

"Wow, you are the best friend in the whole world," Logan replied flatly, dropping his attention back to his text and notebook.

James chuckled a little and there was a light sound as he dropped back again on Logan's bed. "Shut up, you know I think you were cute."

Logan looked up suddenly again. Because, no, he didn't know that. He blinked a couple times again, then looked back down to hide his smile. "Whatever," he said, treating it like a tease, and poked back, "You were way cuter, butterball."

"Hey!" James shot back up, frowning with tight lips at Logan, who just kept on grinning with his head down. But before he knew it, Logan felt James' arms under his, hauling him up, and he shouted a protest as he asked himself how James got to him from the bed so quickly without him even thinking about it.

"James, _what_ are you _doing_?" Logan practically squeaked, and it wasn't that huge a difference than when his voice would get all high and sharp before puberty, which made it pretty embarrassing that it happened now.

James was dragging Logan towards the bed and pushed him onto it before leaping on himself, bouncing slightly. His grin was huge with big, glassy, excited eyes rimmed with those eyelashes. He was apparently very satisfied with himself and the reaction he'd gotten out of Logan. "Play with me!" he insisted, bouncing the bed so Logan nearly fell off it.

Logan made a face. "Really, James? We are too old to _play_," he insisted and went to stand up again.

But James grabbed his arm, pulling him back down. "You're never too old to play!" James argued and Logan looked at him again. He had that look, the hopeful, somewhat lonely look Logan had been staring into since childhood, and he couldn't help but sigh and sit back down.

"What are we playing?" Logan asked, giving a defeated, but good-hearted smile.

James lit up again, and grinned mischievously. "You keep your Power Rangers in a shoebox in your closet."

Logan's mouth dropped open and he stared at James, semi-horrified. "What—how—what were you doing in my closet?" he asked, definitely offended.

James rolled his eyes. There were no such things as boundaries to him. "I was looking for something," he said vaguely, but waved it off, because apparently it really was much less important than the discovery he'd made. "Doesn't matter—go get them!" He roughly shoved at Logan, toppling him off the bed.

Logan sprung onto his feet, straightening his vest and stalked as proudly as he could to his closet to get the box from the back.

James was possibly the most annoying person Logan knew. But he'd had this incredible effect on Logan over the last decade. No longer did Logan get so fed up with him like had in the early stages of their friendship that he shouted at and scolded James. Of course, they fought sometimes, but even through all that, James was one of the best things to have happened to Logan, and Logan just reminded himself of that every time it came down to situations like these, where he wanted to sock James in the face for either manhandling him or going through his things or being overall obnoxious.

"Hey, you know what you should do?" James said from the bed, rocking excitedly again. "Make some cookies."

Logan raised an eyebrow and smirked as he returned to his spot on the bed, setting the box between them. "I'll get right on that, pudge." He was met with an immediate fist to the arm, which he painfully laughed through, unable to help himself. But James recovered from the name-calling quickly, going all bright-eyed and excited as he opened the box. Although he was rubbing the bruise forming on his arm, it made Logan smile.

He really didn't mind James wasting all his time.


End file.
